Chris Lombardi puts defense and security under the spotlight, as he shares his takes on recent NATO and EU cooperation and provides insight into the company’s own long-term strategic partnerships in Europe.

Three trends are currently driving the global electricity sector: decarbonization, decentralization and differentiation. Utilities are making significant contributions to mitigate carbon emissions, while a technology revolution is …

Top officials from the Luxembourg-based Court of Auditors and their counterparts from national offices will decide at a meeting later this month whether such a wide-ranging performance audit of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy is practically, or politically, feasible.

The debate has been prompted by calls for the investigation from an unnamed national government, described only as a new member state which does not get much out of the EU’s 40-billion-ecu annual outlay on agriculture.

Reform of the CAP, which consumes around half the Union’s yearly budget, is one of the EU’s top priorities but at the same time one of the most politically difficult issues it faces.

Informed sources suggest that for this reason, the Court is likely to shy away from launching a review on the grounds that it is too broad an issue for it to tackle.

The auditors are already involved in a long-running political battle over moves to broaden their powers so that they can fully scrutinise the books of two of the EU’s biggest financial institutions: the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Investment Fund (EIF).

MEPs have taken the auditors’ side, but attempts to settle the dispute at a meeting with the European Parliament’s budget control committee last week failed to produce a breakthrough.